The reset continues at Aimbridge

PLANO, Texas – Following Craig Smith’s appointment as Aimbridge Hospitality CEO in late February comes another shakeup in the management company giant’s c-suite with perhaps the biggest news being Global President Mark Tamis leaving and all four division presidents (full-service, select-service, EMEA and LATAM) now reporting directly to Smith, who will have oversight of all company operations.

In addition, Alison Reid is immediately departing as chief global growth officer after less than two years in the role and being replaced with Eric Jacobs, who on June 2 will take on both Reid’s role as well as chief development officer. He joins from Marriott International where he served as chief development officer of midscale brands in the U.S. and Canada. He most recently was involved with the launch of City Express in Latin America, Four Points by Sheraton across EMEA and Studio Res in the U.S.

We are setting ourselves up to be a turbocharged, GM and hotel-centric organization where we are focused on each hotel, each owner and each brand. But we’re going to do this by continuing to remove layers, and the removing of those layers will increase our speed. It will take out bureaucracy and also drive performance.

Craig Smith

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“We believe we still have vast opportunity for growth and with Eric leading the charge, we expect to strategically broaden our reach across both full- and select-service in established and emerging markets,” Smith said.

Smith added, “We are setting ourselves up to be a turbocharged, GM and hotel-centric organization where we are focused on each hotel, each owner and each brand. But we’re going to do this by continuing to remove layers, and the removing of those layers will increase our speed. It will take out bureaucracy and also drive performance.”

Other moves made on Thursday include Aly El-Bassuni, president of Owner Relations, expanding his role to include operations resources. He will continue to oversee all aspects of owner relations plus lead the operations task force, brand relations, property retention, transitions, and operational finance. In this newly created role, he will also lead Aimbridge’s commercial teams, which includes revenue management, digital marketing, e-commerce, and sales.

Jacobs and El-Bassuni will also report directly to Smith.

Finally, Allison Handy, currently senior vice president of select-service sales is taking on an enterprise role as senior vice president of sales for North America where she will oversee the full-service, select-service and national sales teams. Handy will report to El-Bassuni.

In a note to owners and brands, CEO Smith discussed the changes made earlier this year to the operating model, which created a dedicated owner relations to team focused on accountability, simplifying U.S. operations into two divisions to enhance performance and speed-up decision making, and redeploy above-property teams to increase hotel visits and deepen employee engagement.

“Today we’re building on those actions by flattening the top of the organization and optimizing existing senior roles to reduce complexity and drive speed, efficiency, and effectiveness across the business,” Smith said.

In a Thursday morning media briefing, Head of Marketing and Communications Stephanie Peterson said, “We are really resetting our thinking about how we address third-party management and making sure it’s a way for owners to really maximize their asset, that we’re in this for the long haul with them and moving away from transactional to really lasting relationships.”

Lastly, Smith addressed growth for Aimbridge, saying it will continue to grow across verticals in the U.S. with a bigger emphasis on the lifestyle space and leisure-focused hotels. He added that Aimbridge sees tremendous growth opportunities the Europe and Middle East region and that Latin America is  growing as a percentage faster than anywhere else. “We are also looking very eagerly at the Asian Pacific,” he concluded.